


of wind and rabbits and a newspaper folded in three

by untilourapathy (gwendolen_lotte)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, HP: EWE, M/M, Post-War, Reconciliation, Slow Burn, poly dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolen_lotte/pseuds/untilourapathy
Summary: A light pastoral romance, in which Neville plays several parts.Featuring some tea, the sprawling countryside and a hyacinth too.





	of wind and rabbits and a newspaper folded in three

Neville has a cottage on the Wiltshire-Hampshire border, a barren field and a newspaper heart. By tea, he also has a hyacinth bulb on his doorstep. He peers round to see if anyone’s about, wondering what on earth this hyacinth could signify ( _rebirth_ , he thinks), but there’s no one but him and the lazy afternoon sun, just waking, however late. He takes the lonely bulb into his palm and moseys over to his kitchen cupboard, full of empty pots and vases and not much else.

He lets the bulb choose its pot. It seems to like the large china teacup of his Gran’s, he thinks. It’s not until he’s packing the soil, however, that he notices the note. _Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul_ , it reads, drawn in an elegant script. He isn’t too sure what to make of it. He sticks the note into a drawer, surfaces warm from the heat of the meal he cooked earlier, and continues potting, reminding himself to find another jumper. It’s getting a little chilly out — summer is saying its last goodbyes, its drowsy rays coming in dribs and drabs through the little window. But, as usual, he forgets — forgets amidst the paperwork he has to squint over late into the night, amidst the patching up of his cottage with a few spells a day, amidst sending letters to seed collectors all over, asking for samples.

He forgets until a few weeks later, when he receives another little something — a baby Shrivelfig of the Abyssinian variety. He can’t help but smile when he sees it on his doorstep, through his manky kitchen window that he has to remember to clean. He brings it inside and puts it in his magically expanded bath filled with plants, angling it so it’s sure to get some struggling winter sun from the tiny window in the loo. He wonders what to name it. Felicity, he thinks, for the serendipity of it. He doesn’t get another surprise for a while. He tries not to think about what that could mean.

But he does get a surprise a few months later, one of an entirely different sort. He’s tramping through the barren field of the estate nearby, spring only just heralded by a few drooping snowdrops, when he hears the grass rustle ever so slightly behind him. He hears the muted footfall of someone approaching with care, with tenderness, with attention. Neville turns and is faced with Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, in too much tweed and a cap entirely unsuited to the weather, but a distinctly Malfoy-shaped person nonetheless. Neville doesn’t know quite what to say without throwing up, so he’s doubly glad when the wind eats at his rather pathetic greeting.

Malfoy’s hands are bitten red and raw by the February cold, knuckles jutting out white and cold. For a second, Neville thinks of holding Malfoy’s hands in his own, at least until they wake from their hibernation. He shakes his head of these strange thoughts and puts one foot in front of another, heading back from where he came. He’s around Bishopstone or thereabouts, perhaps near Croucheston — close enough to Grim’s Ditch to be worth strolling there, instead of Apparating. He takes one last look at Malfoy — Malfoy, picking up Muggle plastic bags, the bags that dot the countryside like tiny little fleas, parasitic and painful — before leaving, letting himself wonder why he’s succumbing to the awkwardness, so sharp he could cut himself on it.

He writes a letter or two to Luna about it – Luna, who keeps up with the Wizarding World (or any world, for that matter), but he doesn’t read the replies. He just folds the colourful letters up and tucks them into the drawer with the note, telling himself he’ll read them one day. When he’s ready to know the answers. He imagines instead, imagines when he’s humming an old standard as he signs the contract to open his own Herbology reserve. Malfoy, an environmentalist. Malfoy, young and nose slightly off-centre, thin as a mint-tipped toothpick and just as green in the face. But somehow still beautiful, he thinks. Somehow. He ponders on this a little more as he makes supper for two, forgetting that he doesn’t have a companion. He scrapes the rest into the compost bin, telling himself he’ll Vanish the unusable bits later. He never does.

It’s now quite firmly spring of the new year. He can tell that the day is beginning to quiet, preparing itself for its fitful sleep, and he draws the curtains closed with a flick of his wand. He settles down in his Gran’s old armchair, fishing out the stack of legalese by the ottoman. Sandwiched in is a letter, addressed to him. It reeks of old apologies, a rehashing of the past. It’s stamped with a crest he pretends not to know. He’s done so well at ignoring it until now. He throws it into the fire he doesn’t need, tucking his feet into his slippers a little more convincingly. Neville thinks no more of it.

He’s quite successful at this endeavour until April. The cruellest month, according to Harry, who has recently delved into Muggle poetry. Harry only sends him a letter every now and again. He understands why Neville can’t — can’t interact with the rest of them, can’t think of anything beyond his plants. Can’t think of the ruinous shells of beings they’ve become, can’t dwell on the war. With a plant, Neville thinks, you can snip the dead leaf off. That’s not so much the case with humans. Shame. If he were a plant, he wonders, could he grow again in the spring, cleansed?

He wishes he were a plant — to grow again, with spring a song. Maybe then he wouldn’t bleed, wouldn’t have a heart to crush.

There’s no more talk of his heart until later that month. He’s out to buy some jam at the local Muggle market, no longer interested in making his own. On his way there, he bumps into Malfoy again. This time, he doesn’t feel like throwing up so much. He does still feel the remnants of the war stuck to him, no matter how much he bathes himself raw — underneath his vest, shirt, skin. Sometimes, when he’s surrounded by the hard, unfriendly things, he still tries to claw out of himself, seeking that rebirth. He suddenly remembers the hyacinth and wonders some more.

But he likes to think he’s a bit better now. So he offers his hand to Malfoy, knowing that they’re going to run into one another again, living as they do. Malfoy shakes his hand firmly, avoiding his eyes all the while. He can feel Malfoy’s gaze everywhere else. On his shoes, his tatty jumper, his stomach. Malfoy makes an aborted attempt to ask him round for tea before Neville firmly declines. Better for the both of them, entirely less awkward, completely less traumatic. Or so he thinks.

Because by the time June rolls around, Neville has come to the unavoidable conclusion that Malfoy is inevitable. For a county so spread out, they’ve certainly run into each other enough. He’s almost certain that Malfoy’s orchestrating these meetings – or would be, if Malfoy would deign to talk to him. Not that he cares, not at all, but it would probably be less tense if they did. So he decides someone has to start the conversation, and even if Neville of his youth would balk in terror, twenty-year-old Neville doesn’t. They do chat a bit, after that. Malfoy’s on a mission to save the countryside, it turns out. Neville’s not too sure about the idyllic pastures Malfoy has as his goal, but commends him for it nonetheless. Malfoy also tells Neville where to find the best jams and which footpaths to take to avoid running into easily spooked cows. Neville learns more about Malfoy. He’s seeking things — things and things and things to fill his empty heart, so much like the barren sky. He can hear the wind blowing inside of him where a beating mass of blood should be, he tells him. He takes Neville’s palm and presses it to his chest. Neville hopes Malfoy can’t feel his own heart galloping along, blood seeping into his newspaper heart, it coming alive for the first time in so long.

In return, Neville takes him to Hope Cove beach down in Devon and gives him the hyacinth the next time they meet, the hyacinth that reminds him he can live every day anew — that he can have his rebirth, that he doesn’t have to forget his past to do so. When Malfoy sees the plant in Neville’s dirt-tracked hands, his face is entirely obscured by his smile. A smile just a little too wide for his bony face, a smile so brilliant Neville just has to smile too.

‘It helped,’ he says, ‘when I received it. A lovely surprise, made my week. I hope it does the same for you too.’

Draco's laughter as he takes the hyacinth into his hands buoys Neville up for the rest of the day; even now, when he thinks of it, he smiles. Because Draco’s laugh curls open like the crinum lilies nestled in his pocket from their day at the beach — ugly, but whole.

Draco comes round quite often after that. Neville doesn’t like the Manor and neither does Draco, it seems. He often comes bearing gifts, usually a packet of rare seeds from his occasional travels or a little cutting from the Manor gardens, the only part of the estate left to run free. Neville’s busy trying to strangle a Devil’s Snare into a pot too small for its own good when Draco taps on the door, before letting himself in with his own key. It’s a breezy summer’s afternoon and it’s been a full year, Neville thinks, since the hyacinth. How time does fly. Neville calls from the loo. Draco waltzes in to see Neville half in his bathtub, Snare as tall as he is and far too handsy, crouched in preparation. Neville notices the laughter lining Draco’s lips.

‘I think the Devil’s Snare is just misunderstood,’ he says diplomatically.

‘Misunderstood,’ Draco echoes, a corner of his mouth tugging up in a smile. ‘Really now.’

Neville just rolls his eyes and shoos him out. ‘Make us a cuppa, won’t you?’

Draco acquiesces, as he is wont to do nowadays, and procures a box of the good teabags from the pockets of his summer robe. Good thing too, as Draco’s whined enough about Neville’s shitty tea.

‘No one else has complained,’ Neville would shoot back. ‘Harry’s always alright with it.’

Draco would always tense at that bit, fists clenched. ‘For a supposed herbalist, you have appalling taste in tea leaves.’

‘A Herbologist, you twit,’ Neville would grumble, before returning Draco’s wink.

When Draco leaves later that evening, through the Floo in an unusual rush, Neville notices that Draco doesn’t take his box of teabags with him. Neville takes that as a good sign. He smiles.

Draco comes back round the next day. Not an uncommon occurrence, but after last night’s hasty exit, Neville isn’t too sure anymore. Perhaps he just forgot his tea.

‘So,’ Draco says, smile soft and quiet, ‘how’s it going, then, at Neville Longbottom’s Home for the Misunderstood?’ He charms the water until its fit to boil and watches as the bubbles rise and pop.

Neville swallows an answering smile. ‘Fuck off, Draco. Is that why you’re here, then? Misunderstood, are you?’

Draco just waltzes through Neville’s yellow kitchen that he’s now familiar with. He sets the milk onto the counter and fetches three mugs out.

Neville nods at the mugs. ‘Three?’ Perhaps Draco had a guest over last night who he’s taken to invite. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, glancing down at himself. A worn, soft cashmere thrown carelessly on, socks with two holes at least and his gardening trousers.

‘Potter said he might come by, later.’ Nonchalant, blasé. But Neville can see the strained cords of his neck and raises an eyebrow knowingly.

‘Haven’t seen Harry in yonks. That’ll be nice, I think.’ Neville hears the spoons clink as he turns to rifle through his planning documents, hoping to settle on a name for his reserve soon. He could ask Draco, maybe. Let him into his secret plans. He’s been on his own for so long now, he’s forgotten what it’s like to have a — a friend.

‘Really,’ Draco says, forehead creased, ‘I was under the impression the two of you were close. I wouldn’t have invited him over, otherwise. But it seemed that —’

‘We did have a sort of thing, a while back now. When we were eighteen, I think? But he hasn’t been to see me recently — it was why we stopped, really. Neither of us were really fit for anything more. And — and you can, I mean, invite people. My - this place is always open to you. You know that, right?’

‘Right,’ Draco says, lips still thin and taut. ‘That makes the two of us, then.’ Draco offers a mug to Neville and they toast. ‘To lost loves, then.’

Love? Neville thinks, as his newspaper heart blooms. It unfurls like the beginnings of a flower bud, rosy-fingered and tentative in its escape. Crawling out of its hibernation with a crackle or two, he shoves it back down with a gulp. Oh. Right.

Love.

Harry never comes. It’s much later and they’ve now consumed too much perry for anyone’s own good during their waiting. They’ve started on the Ogden’s, but they’re hardly making a dent. They’ve chatted too much to do so. The curtains are light and — and orange behind where Draco stands, backlit.

‘Move to the right, yeah, like that,’ Neville asks, coming across braver than he feels. Maybe it’s the alcohol.

‘Why?’ Draco asks, although compliant, shuffling over a little so he has the curtains behind him, billowing dramatically.

‘I like to look at you like that,’ Neville confesses. ‘I just like to look at you, I suppose.’

Neville thinks he could spoon Draco’s radiant smile into his now-cold tea, cream and all. He wonders if the burn in his chest can be chalked up to the Firewhiskey. He drinks a little more just for good measure, holding out a hand. What could he have to lose, at this point? It hurts, keeping it in, just as much as it would to lose this. Draco takes it silently, and closes his eyes. 

That’s the first time Draco stays the night. They wake at a healthy half four, scrunching their faces as they’re assaulted by the sun, cheering them on. Draco takes him through the motions of his day as louche aristo. He makes them a pot of tea for three, an extra teabag thrown in for the pot, and drags Neville over to the Vale of Pewsey, its southernmost arm. They sit eating an apple, Draco licking the juice running down Neville’s knuckles. They spend the rest of their morning playing hide and seek, like the children they were never allowed to be. For grief ate their childhoods and spat them out as growns, emerging nibbled, bitten, torn – but as growns nonetheless. Neville sprints in between the straggling trees in their ivy coats, feeling at least a little bit happier. They Vanish rubbish together, at Draco’s insistence, on their way back. Neville complies quite happily, but can’t resist a jab or two as they walk back. Who knew the materialistic child he knew would turn out this way?

Oddly enough, Neville realises, Draco is more attuned to the countryside than he is. Draco needs to sit on the golden hills sometimes, to remember how to breathe. He is the quintessential country gentleman in the making, penchant for clubbing aside. Neville doesn’t know what that makes him. But that is what he writes to Harry, the invigorating morning walk inspiring him to deal with his demons. He can reopen contact, he thinks. The world isn’t as scary as it seems. Harry he could deal with, he thinks. Harry was meant to come yesterday. Why not today?

A rather bad idea, Neville thinks. It’s a lot harder to think your decisions a good idea, Neville finds, when you don’t have the summer sun’s laughter behind you, warming your every decision. It’s now the Tuesday and Neville is unimpressed with his former eagerness at living like a functioning human, with more than one friend. For Harry’s come round at Nev’s behest, seemingly to sit in his dressing gown and eat all of Nev’s Tunnocks. The Tunnocks that he buys for Draco, who refuses to admit he likes them still. Harry flirts with him, too - if a little antagonistically. Not with Neville, of course, but with Draco. Yet he does this all the while as he stares mournfully at Neville, like Neville’s something precious, something to want and to have. Neville doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that ache either, the ache whenever he sees Harry. He chalks it down to envy.

It’s fine, he tells himself. Draco and him, they aren’t properly together. Haven’t defined anything. Harry and Draco can chat all they’d like. But it has been a full four hours since the three of them had entered Nev’s small kitchen, and he’s full to the brim with quiet worry. His worry grows like the fungus that had settled underneath the floorboards, manifesting itself in his making several cups of shitty tea with his own teabags, just to remind Draco he’s there. Neville gets defensive when he’s worried, his Gran’s said before, and it’s evident in his bollocksed up tea. Too much milk, then too little - saucers dripping from where the teacups overflowed, just like his insides seem to do. Worry, not envy. He tells himself that with some firmness. He does not own either of them.

Draco has the uncanny ability to know when Neville’s uncomfortable. He’d eyed Neville all throughout their cream tea last week, noticing his skin-scraped hands, raw fingernails, frayed jumper. He’s brought it up before, but Neville’s always left the room, closing the door quietly, if with some purpose. But he realises he does have to say something, if not to lose Draco, at least. It’d do no good to pretend that he and Draco were living in their pastoral paradise, free from the responsibilities of the world. He’s crawled on hands and knees for a piece of that happiness and he’s not giving it up. But he’s not sure he can go on any further – he looks at himself, trousers bloodied with shreds of skin, hands pebbled with gravel, and knows that if Harry wants Draco, he’s not sure he’d be alright, after.

But, he thinks, if he has to start interacting with more people again, it might as well be Harry. Last time didn’t go so well, he knows, but it’s better to deal with Harry than invite a whole new person. Luna was abroad, and anyone else would be too loud. He mentions this to Draco the next week, after he sends it off with his rarely-used Owl, kept only really to send little things to Draco. He’s written to Harry again, inviting him over.

They’re settled in Neville’s broken armchair at that moment, hands nearly touching. Draco’s swung a leg over Neville, whose arm is numb. When Neville speaks, Draco just rolls over after his nap to nose into Neville’s neck, not bothering to respond. Neville isn’t sure this means, never is. They haven’t taken that leap, either of them. But there Draco is, leaving soft kisses all down Neville’s collarbone as he sighs, voice dark with sleep. Neville doesn’t let himself keep the kisses, remember them, capture them between forefinger and thumb. He knows it’s not to last — he’s seen Draco and Harry interact, seen Draco’s windy heart break at Harry’s words.

He pretends the kisses are petals instead — that which will wilt if he tries to keep them. And when Draco lets his fingers roam over Neville’s stretch marks by his hips — the stretch marks that he’s grown to love, that no longer concern him, ropey and white — he doesn’t let himself respond. Even as they kiss for the first time, world melting around them — a kiss proper, Neville thinks. But Neville forces himself to leave and lets the kiss drop to the floor, traps it in that room with the bang of the door. He lets himself out of his own cottage and goes to out to the field to think.

Draco doesn’t seem to take offence. Draco lets him be for a bit, before coming out to find him — sitting with him all through the night, as Neville blinks back heavy thoughts, their bums all muddy. Until the sun wakes from its daily rest, a rest Neville never seems to find. Neville takes Draco’s hand as he runs his other through the wind-swept mounds of grass, browned with unhappiness. They’ll be alright.

Later that dim afternoon, after some particularly demanding activity, Draco leaves a book of myths at his feet as he huddles into Neville’s duvet. A page is marked in purple ink, which Neville strokes tenderly. Neville smiles as he reads over it, the sun casting its last lazy rays over the two of them, distorted by the bedroom window.

‘So who’s Apollo, then?’ He laughs as he reads of Hyacinth, Apollo’s lover. He tries desperately not to think of Harry. Harry, dancing at their periphery. He rolls over to bring Draco to his bare chest, clasping his pale hands, skin paper-thin. Draco, he reminds himself, the veins on a leaf if veins could bleed blue. They’re happy together, he knows. But they are balancing on that tightrope — that fine line between risk and risk, poised to fall and bruise either way.

Neville wishes love were cleaner.

By now, their relationship, if you will, has settled into a loving routine. They stand in the unforgiving light of August, ray of light shining into the dusty corners of the cottage, on the lookout for lies. Draco’s things are mostly here now, despite the cramped state of it. They sleep together most nights, Draco’s travels growing more and more infrequent. Neville’s selfishly glad for it. What doesn’t grow infrequent are Harry’s visits. When he joins them in bed one day, the four o’ clock sun bearing down upon the three of them like a judge, it doesn’t seem so odd. After all, Draco and Harry had always had this tension. You’d have to be blind not to see it, feel it, taste it. And Harry and Neville had ended things amicably enough to resume. But Neville doesn’t trust himself to let go, grow complacent in their comfort. No, he doesn’t, not when he knows it won’t last — can’t.

It goes on for a while. The three of them have no idea what they’re doing, or what they are. It’s a non-relationship, really. Something they didn’t realise was happening, not until after. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, when four months later, Harry leaves their bed as Draco’s reading them the _Prophet_ , throwing the blue striped duvet aside, and says his goodbyes. Their relationship ends over a pot of cold tea and a half-eaten tea cake, a soggy way to go, really. If Draco has to go into the shower to cry a bit, Neville pretends not to know. It’s easier that way, to have their — his cottage padded with lies and sheep’s wool and half-arsed spells, easier than to strip their hearts bare. Much, much easier.

Neville thinks he’ll always remember the sudden way Draco shuts the cutlery drawer and his uneven steps across the cold floor, chilled with winter’s spirit. His heart breaks a little for Draco, and a bit more for himself. Draco crumples the paper in his fist and Neville tries not to think of his heart. He bites on his fingers and refuses to feel.

They don’t talk to Harry for a while. Eight months, perhaps. Nine? It’s now about September the next year, but Neville doesn’t keep count. He has other things on his mind. His reserve is plodding along quite nicely, with Draco’s help. Draco’s pouring in some funds and does the Arithmancy, among other things. It’s been a good year and a bit since they’ve first started talking and Neville couldn’t be gladder for it. They’re both dusted with a few freckles from their hard graft from the summertime, and Draco’s moved onto his campaign to clear the Cotswolds. Time ambles along for a bit, when Draco decides it’s their anniversary. Neville has his doubts but offers his arm for Draco’s Side-Along, trusting him to take him somewhere with few people and even less noise.

That’s how they’re lying in Westonbirt, Draco and him, surrounded by a blanket of Warming Charms. He can feel the grass — crunchy with icing sugar snow — dig into his back, tickle his wrists. It really does make him laugh, though. Which, if he’s being honest, doesn’t take much these days, now that he has Draco. All Sticking Charms to the heart, if you will – his heart just a collection of prophecies and medical records written in ink, the death warrants for Mum, Dad, Gran imprinted on.

He feels like a paper cut-out lying amongst the leaves, something disposable, constructed of dead things and bitterness and not enough hugs. If he looks far enough to his left, he thinks he can almost see the childhood love that should have been, rotting by the apple cores and the empty bottles of Lambrini from earlier. Draco notices, as Draco does, and reaches ever so slightly, just enough to grasp at Neville’s pinky and hold it close.

He curls into himself at Draco’s touch, tucking his limbs in one by one by one until he is all shrunken, a marionette dancing to the tune of the wind – a curious sight indeed. Neville feels so mangled by the world, just a cobbled-together afterthought, a construction of words and flesh and time left to the mercies of the world’s edges, so sharp they could cut and break. Neville knows that this is why he needs his garden, his reserve, his field — something to fill that gap between what he sees and what really is. Something to intertwine those two halves, that could grow and grow and bloom under his love.

The garden in his mind — its greenness, a sort of grief — is so unlike the world, but real enough. For some days, his soul aches – for his mother, someone he never knew, and for his father, a collection of pictures, of tears, of words. But an ‘I miss them’ — or what they were supposed to be — isn’t enough. The feel of the St Mungo’s carpet underneath his boots and the smell of those two green potions never enough, the texture of Gran’s scratchy wool cardy against his cheek, mingled with tangy tears, not real enough to make his parents come alive. Couldn’t, wouldn’t bring them back, wouldn’t bring his fantasy to life — nor death. So he learns to mourn and live instead. He turns back to look at Draco – grounding him, always there for him – and kisses him hello again. Draco’s joined him in his glassy world, spun out of weeds and damp. For a year, he thinks. A whole year. He laughs into the sky, letting the breeze carry it on. He doesn’t stop smiling till he falls asleep on Draco’s chest – warm, content.

Harry starts popping round again in the new year, the smell of lilies pervading their home. The three of them mightn’t’ve worked out — Harry was always yearning for something they couldn’t give him — but they love each other nonetheless, in their own way. So it’s to their surprise when they slip into the easy rhythms of togetherness again, like the way the rain beats down on the earth. Necessary. Vital. Neville takes Harry’s hand one morning, softly. He let his fingers rest over Harry’s wrist, fleshy palm, quick-bitten nails.

‘Breathe,’ Draco says, amused, watching Harry’s face. There’s a hole in Draco’s jumper, the one that Harry’s currently wearing, and Draco won’t stand for it.

Neville lets the tip of his wand rest by Harry’s elbow, murmuring a soft spell to knit Draco’s jumper back together as a small light glows. Neville watches Harry watch the light, watches Harry let himself watch the tenderness on Neville’s own face, let himself bask in the light touch of his hand. Neville feels Harry relax and let himself feel, for once. To feel at home, and not as an intruder.

But Neville also notices when Harry realises that Neville was using Draco’s wand. Harry lets himself out, at least closing the door with some ease. No, he doesn’t know where they stand. Neville now notices Harry’s uncertainties, whenever Draco gives Neville a tiny, private smile.

‘Thank you, Neville,’ he breathes, brushing a soft kiss to Neville’s cheekbone.

Harry shows a bitterness on his face then, piercing him at the sight of the petalled kiss, spreading through his clenching rabbit heart – especially when Draco calls Neville by his given name. Neville knows how he feels. He watches as Harry lets himself shrivel, heart blackened and broken. He feeds him more cups of tea than is sensible until Harry realises. He’s wanted, Neville says as he spoons in the sugar cube, Harry’s wanted. He’s a little less unhappy than their last attempt at a relationship, but still a little off. But Neville has enough to worry about on his own. Because between Draco’s nods of encouragement and Harry’s shrugs, he decides it’s time to go back - to his childhood home, where his Gran took her last, broken breath.

Harry’s ‘busy’ then, but Draco comes with him when, edgy and tentative, he finally goes back to Gran’s. They reach the opening corridor, which had always eaten him up as a child. Ostensibly to show Draco, but they both know it’s to visit Gran’s portrait, carved out of della Robbia blue, crumbling sighs and flakes of lies. They’re back in his childhood home and he hates it. He reminds himself that he has Draco — even though he doesn’t _have_ him — as the walls of the raw, raw room begin to slowly encroach upon him, squeezing at his throat. He doesn’t let himself dwell on that too much, on what Harry’s up to, on what Harry thinks. That way lies disaster, and his fragile heart, already so thin and worn, can’t take more.

They’re by his bedroom door now. He hesitates. His fingers reach out of their own accord, wanting to open that room of his childhood – his fears, worries and loves. To revisit the shells he’d collect at the beach, each with their own stories to tell, and the dog-eared books of his youth humming their tune. To smell the sun piercing through the window that wouldn’t open, and hear the sound of the left-most drawer slamming wide open. Draco touches his elbow, oh so lightly, and Neville has to take his newspaper heart and fold it in three, has to hand it to his last love left. Neville smiles, and that is all.

Draco tucks it into his left pocket to keep it safe and clutches his shoulder with some force, shaking with happiness. Neville still doesn’t know what they’re doing with Harry. All he knows is that he is so completely and irrevocably in love with Draco, and has been for some time. He’s told him this time and time again, but it’s different, this time. Draco has his heart in his pocket, now. Neville can’t help but laugh through the tears, feeling a new heart of his growing — one that can bloom, reach out.

His heart, a bramble. It feels like Draco — like his love. Neville thinks he understands, then. He’ll have Draco always, he knows, he’ll always have him to love. No matter what ends up happening with Harry, although they’re both rather inclined to have him stay. Neville thinks Harry’d like to stay, too. Neville’s watched Harry watch his lips, Draco’s. It’s taken Harry a long time, Neville knows, to realise it is them he is filling his heart with. The lips of that gaping, bleeding wound — his heart — guzzling at the two of them, filching their love for when he needs it most.

They don’t mind. Neville has come to terms with this. Why won’t Harry?

He asks Draco about this, later that month, when they’re wrapped up in each other, finalising the opening of his reserve. Draco says it’s an imbalance thing, as patches of light glance over their bodies, naked and proud. How Harry feels like a loose end, like he has nothing to give back. But Draco himself is a spiral of colour, tightly wound. A bouquet of hate, a human made of abandoned parts, stirred in a witches’ brew with two flowers and a splash of regret. His birth — a limb sticking out that cauldron, wailing, crying. He doesn’t know what to give Neville either, what to do to deserve his love. But he loves them nonetheless.

Draco tells this to Harry, how he still feels undeserving, how he doesn’t understand how Neville loves him. How his heart feels all the more hollow as he tries to breathe, when searching for something, anything, of his to give. For that is all he has. Just himself, and a windy heart. But that doesn’t mean the answer is to run away. (That earns Draco another baleful glare.) Neville clasps both of their hands together, telling them he’d be back. He’s something to do.

When Neville gets home with his surprise for Harry, he opens his drawer again. He sees the note, that very first note from Draco – that, he now knows. _Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul_. He’s certainly taken that to heart, he thinks. For their kitchen counter is now dotted with hyacinths, petals waving a shy hello – his present. He hopes Harry understands. Over time, he thinks Harry does. He finds the letters from Luna buried under a sheaf of parchment, and another letter, unsent. He turns it over quizzically. It’s from Draco, that much is obvious. No one else can stain a page with that much gravitas. He can’t help but notice the unsent words on the page, inked matte blue.

 _Dear Mum,_ it reads,  
_I love Neville. Harry might be alright, too._  
_Love, Draco_

Neville tucks the letter into his left pocket, much like Draco had done with his newspaper heart. He resolves to ask him about it later, over dinner. The three of them, together.

It’s now winter again. Neville has a cottage, a tiny toad named Trever Two and two loving boyfriends. He could fall, and he knows he’d have them to catch him. He still has his field, a little less barren now and certainly with less litter — and the bath is used for other purposes now, the Snargaluff having been moved. If Draco holds his hand out, Harry’ll be sure to take it, even if it’s after a moment or twenty. Because they’ve each other, after all. The three of them, they're a rough sort of poetry. Broken edges of words tossed away, the letters blotted by ink: misshapen, cursed, malformed. But he is loved.

But he is loved, in their home for the misunderstood.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods for running this lovely fest! I really adore the British countryside and I hope I did it justice. Writing this has brought back so many gorgeous memories. I did write this in a sitting, so I apologise for any glaring holes in the storyline. You can find me at @untilourapathy on Tumblr. Many thanks to the wonderful Aibidil for the speedy and thorough beta xx I hope you enjoyed!


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